Afrikaans is an Indo-European language derived from Dutch and thus classified as Low Franconian West Germanic. It is mainly spoken in South Africa and Namibia, with smaller numbers of speakers living in Botswana, Angola, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Zambia, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Taiwan and Argentina.[1] Due to emigration and migrant labour, there are possibly over 100,000 Afrikaans speakers in the United Kingdom,[2] with other substantial communities found in Brussels,[citation needed] Amsterdam, Perth, Mount Isa, Toronto and Auckland. It is the primary language used by two related ethnic groups in South Africa: the Afrikaans people (Afrikaners) and the Coloureds (in Afrikaans: kleurlinge or bruinmense - including Basters, Cape Malays and Griqua).
Afrikaans is the majority language of the western one-third of South Africa (Northern and Western Cape, in which it is spoken at home by 69% and 58% of the population, respectively). It is also the most common first language in the adjacent southern third of Namibia (Hardap and Karas, where it is the first language of 44% and 40% of the population, respectively).[citation needed]
Afrikaans and Dutch are largely mutually intelligible.
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By Debashine Thangevelo Friday will be a momentous occasion for 7de Laan, SABC2's flagship Afrikaans soap, as it celebrates its 2 000th episode. ...
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